Budget statement on tax fairness and progressivity

See full report attached.It's a tiny bit technical, but here are the key points:

Ireland has the most progressive income tax system in the Eurozone

The top 10% of households pay 51% of all Income Tax and USC

And this budget skews things to be even more progressive...

The big problem with backing the country into such a progressive structure is that it is next to impossible to reverse as this would appear to 'reward' high earners which is a political no-go area. Higher earners were hit first and shouldered proportionately more burden of the recession but there is no chance of this being reversed. Instead we have more people 'taken out of the income tax net' when the USC was the best thing the government had done in broadening the income tax base.

Hi orka

Agree fully, apart from the comment that this is a political no-go area.

The fact that politicians are too scared to go there, does not mean that it is a no-go area. I think that there would be a fair sized audience for a party which campaigned to switch away from a welfare society to a personal responsibility society. I don't think that they would win an outright majority, but they should be able to take the 4th seat in quite a few constituencies.

A lot of people believe that top tax rates are too high and that high social welfare rates are discouraging people from working.

Brendan

the media hammer home the ( false ) message every day that ireland is a very unequal society , far left political parties ( with only a few percent of the vote ) also get a hugely disproportionate level of airtime so a high degree of conditioning sets in

Half the population are recipients/beneficiaries of weekly welfare payments.